Beulah All About Defending their Title - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Beulah All About Defending their Title

     The Beulah Miner's Boys Basketball team is off to an undefeated start this season-- that includes beating former number one team North Star in December.
    The team won a state Championship in Class B last season-- and they are looking to make it happen back to back.

Beulah Head coach Jeremy Brandt has a luxury most coaches can only imagine-- a starting lineup of 5 seniors-- all of whom won a state title last season.

"(JEREMY BRANDT/ HEAD COACH) "All five of these guys you know some of them been playing since they were freshmen others played a lot as sophomores and there on up so it's kind of nice to see them get better as the year goes on and now obviously those kids are producing for us and that's why we're where we're at is because of those seniors.

Beulah prides itself on the press defense-- part of the game Brandt focuses on the most-- and the team knows how important the mindset defense first is to winning on the court.

"(KARSON HINTZ/ SENIOR) I Think every defensive drill we do in practice is running sprinting everything we know we can score we've done that a lot but defense we know if we can defend teams and keep them under 40 points that we're gonna win a good majority of our games because we can put the basket in without any effort at all almost. Defense is definitely our strong suit. "

The Miners  are currently ranked first in Class B-- and with last year's state championship win-- Beulah has turned into a basketball town.

"(CODY NELSON/ SENIOR) It's great. You're just like going to church or the grocery store and people come up and talk to you or say good game or who you got next and stuff like that it's really nice having everyone out there supporting you and wanting us to succeed. "

These five seniors are setting the bar not only for this year's junior class-- but all of the underclassmen on the team.

(JEREMY BRANDT) "Our under classmen have really fed off of them as well and its made them hungry to try to work hard so they can get some playing time as well and try to continue the success now that we've been having the last few years but those seniors have definitely led the way. "

(KARSON HINTZ) "A lot of them have stepped up when they see playing with us and having a chance to be a part of a state championship team is really cool. I think and if they would keep it up and just see how the community and the people react and how good it feels to be considered number one in the state. "

As the team takes the court week in and week out with a target on their back-- Coach Brandt says that if they have a loss or two it's fine as long as they get the wins when it matters-- come tournament time.

    Beulah opens district play with Hazen on Thursday night.
    The game is at 7.